Random Drabbles
by severance pay
Summary: What it says on the tin. #4: Harry has always wanted to die. #5: Being dropped out of a window doesn't take away Neville's love of plants.
1. Lucius x Oliver - Dystopian Romance

The war is over. Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters won. Harry, Ron, and Hermione disappeared sometime during the seventh year. No bodies have been found, so there is some hope that they'll turn up one day. But it's hard. It's getting harder and harder every day to remember what the world was like before the Dark Lord took over. The factories belch smoke into the air and stretch across the horizon.

Some of the pureblood wizarding families manage to do quite well for themselves. Lord Lucius Malfoy, the Dark Lord's right-hand man, finds himself showered in pillars of gold for his years of unwavering loyalty. Lord Malfoy appears on the covers of tabloid magazines, white-faced and hurrying from place to place. His son, Draco, often appears alongside the esteemed Lord Malfoy. His wife, Narcissa, is suspiciously absent.

Times are hard. There is little to eat, and there is a dry cough that sets in deep in the lungs of the witches and wizards forced to work in the factories. They are engineering WMD's for the Muggles. Lord Voldemort started a war with sides of Muggles pitted on both sides, and he supplies both with ammunition. On cold days, the factory works swear they can hear the Dark Lord laughing from the highest tower in his castle. Planning to destroy someone else's life, no doubt, they mutter amongst themselves.

Oliver Wood was a boy when the world ended. He remembers light and sound pictures inside his head of flying above the Quidditch field at school - Quidditch, he remembers, was his mission in life - but very little besides. He goes to work like the rest. He takes a pail with him when he goes, and he eats in the same soot-covered breakrooms that his co-workers. He fits in. He is normal.

Until the day that same Lord Lucius Malfoy calls for Oliver Wood's esteemed presence.


	2. Dennis Misses His Older Brother

When he's fifteen, Dennis' older brother dies. It shouldn't matter. Loads of other people lost good folks in the Battle of Hogwarts, and Dennis is no one special. He puts his trousers on one leg at a time, he kisses his wife goodbye before he goes to work in the morning. He rides the bus to work, he lives near or around London. He's the same as he's always been on the outside, the same kid who fell into the lake in first year and had to be fished out by big burly hands, he's still that kid. On the inside, though, his heart is missing. Broken. Big brothers are priceless. Irreplaceable. They show us the light when we think it's all gone, they show us the way forward when we don't know which way to turn. Dennis lost his. Dennis only had one older brother, and he let him slip like water through his fingers.

It's been ten years. The year is two thousand and eight. Dennis, unlike the American fast food owner, works at the Ministry these days. It helps. Going into work everyday and doing the same things today as he did yesterday, it helps. Absolves him of his sin, of his guilt, of the devil on his shoulder that tells him he should've done something more, that he should've _been_ more. Realistically, he knows that's not true. We're not omniscient. We're not omnipotent. There was no way Dennis could've known that Colin would run off in the night. He's smart enough to know it for a fact. But his heart won't believe it. The Ministry is chock full of people just like Dennis.

Instead of worrying about the future that looms like a dark cloud, Dennis concentrates on what the Ministry places right in front of him. It's wrong, in a certain sense of the word. The world is not run by politicians, but neither is it run by worker bees. It takes two kinds of workers to make the world run. Eventually, someone will have to take a stand. Say, _this is where I want the world to go._ What the Ministry is doing these days feels deliberate. Practical. Under the patient and wise hands of Kingsley Shacklebolt, Minister for Magic, Dennis feels like maybe he'll like the way the world goes. Who knows, maybe nobody else will have to lose their whole world.


	3. Harry x Ginny - Smalltown Romance

Author's Note: Inspired by "Rainbow," (2017) by Sia. Sia sings, 'I can see a rainbow / in your tears.' This is my take on a small town kind of romance where Harry left to go to the big city to play music, and Ginny waits for him to come home. Inspired in part by real-life events. My brother left when I was ten. He came back when he was twenty-eight, and I was nineteen. We're still working on it.

* * *

There are some things that Harry does that Ginny doesn't understand. When they're ten, Ginny dares Harry to steal a bottle of fobscottle out of her mother's kitchen cabinets. He just wanted to watch the bubbles swirl downwards. He didn't want to drink it. Looking at his face, seeing the joy and wonder in his eyes, Ginny didn't have the heart to tell him no. She got caught putting it back, and after the yelling had finished, her mum told her to look out for Harry Potter. Mum doesn't have to ask. They're the best of friends.

Ginny and Harry are fifteen and they're flying behind the house when Harry tells her that he'll race her to the horizon. Ginny looks at him oddly; you can't race to the horizon, everybody knows that. She tells him so. But he smiles so wide, and he looks so care-free, his tousled black hair ruffling in the wind, that Ginny cannot stop him. They race to and fro across the skyline.

Tragedy strikes when they're twenty-three. Harry's godfather, Sirius, passes away from a magical sickness. Harry is devastated. He looks through Ginny at the funeral. No matter what she does or says, he won't look at her. She's worried he maybe never will. One day, Ginny wakes up, and Harry's gone. He pulls a disappearing act.

It hurts, the way it always does, being the one left behind. Once the shock wears off, Ginny's pissed. She's beyond angry. There's a hurricane roiling around in her chest, and she is at its tender mercies. She is a poisonous mix of hurt, worry, apathy, and ever-growing pit in the bottom of her stomach that says Harry is never planning on coming back. That he's gone for good this time. Missing him and knowing he'll never coming back hurts twice as much as if he'd disappeared into thin air. It hurts to think that maybe Harry doesn't care about her as much she cares about him.

Ginny does what all people must. She carries on. Yes, her heart is broken, and no, that doesn't change a thing. She gets a job at the Apothecary. It's dull work with only some moments of brightness interspersed through the days and weeks she works there. Ginny cannot help but think that Harry would hate it. Harry was made for greater things. He would probably tell that so was she. He was sweet, Ginny thinks. But he's not here with her.

Ginny knows her mum is worried about her. She doesn't care. If something was going to happen, it would've happened already, she thinks.

One day, apropos of nothing, Harry walks into her life. There's no warning. If she was a little less restrained, Ginny would break down crying, screaming, tell him to never ever leave her like that again. She thinks he might listen this time. She can convince him to stay this time.

They're a year shy of thirty. It's been six years since they saw each other. Harry has a guitar slung across his shoulders. He's smiling at her like she is everything he has ever wanted, like there was nothing that could ever stop him from coming back for her, and Ginny. Ginny looks at Harry. She thinks about all the times she wondered if he was ever coming back, of the tearstains on her pillowcase. Her heart squeezes. She thinks about how she wants him back. And she thinks maybe she can give him another chance. Just once.

This isn't where the story ends. They both need to explain themselves, and there will be plenty of tears. But that's alright. They'll be fine. The best stories are always a little tragic.


	4. Harry Wants to Die

Warning! child abuse, depression, thoughts of suicide

Author's Note: There's a happy ending, I promise. If you liked this, go read, "where there's a will," (2017) by aloneintherain on AO3.

Summary: Harry always wanted to die.

Prompt: Hogwarts, Term #12, Assignment #1, Celtic Studies Task #1

# of words: 446

* * *

Harry used to write encrypted messages in the corners of his essays. Dot, dot, dot. Dash, dash, dash. He decided on a mix of Braille and Morse, but to a casual on-looker it looked more like a crayon drawing mixed with some amateurish attempts at Chinese calligraphy. In big bold letters, Harry was telling anyone who would listen that he wanted to kill himself. 'Kill me,' said Harry, 'or I might try to do it myself.'

What does one say when one wishes to die? When one has the sneaking suspicion that Death is no farther than the nearest corner, that Death has placed his hands on you and he was never planning to let go? What do you say? To yourself and to others?

I'll tell you what happens.

When you grow up feeling like you should be dead, like there are dead flies in your mouth and a horrible sinking feeling in your gut that tells you that you don't belong, that you never will, that you should kill yourself, that it would be easier to just die, well. It normalizes some things. You don't think it's that important, that you should tell somebody or get help, because in your mind's eye everybody already knows. Nothing's changed. What makes today different from yesterday? Or the day before? You've always wanted to kill yourself. You've never stopped. It's just that nobody noticed before.

What do you say to yourself, then, when you want to die?

It starts small. You write notes in the margins of your essays. In truth, you never wanted to die. But if the choice is between the life you've lived and living the rest of your life the way you have before now, then there's no choice at all. Harry did not have a happy childhood. The Dursleys made his life hell. He was lonely at school and openly detested at home. There's only so long you can go without hope before you realize your life is meaningless, that it would be better for the rest of the herd if you just dropped dead tomorrow. If you just killed yourself. There's some joy in thinking that, a secret pleasure that only the maudlin know, when you're at the end of your rope, and you find you still have some control over yourself. It's breath-taking. Awe-inspiring.

Harry writes in a secret code because he doesn't want anyone to know how he feels, and because he needs some reminders that, deep down, he doesn't want to die. He only wants to be free.


	5. Neville Loves His Potted Plants

Prompt: Write about someone being weak or frail

(via Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry - Term #12 - Assignment #3 - Culinary Arts: Pasta - Task #11: Vermicelli)

Word count: 304

Summary: Being dropped from a window doesn't take away Neville's love of plants.

* * *

When Neville is eight years old, his Great Uncle Algie drops him upside-down from an upstairs window. He does not bounce. He breaks both of his legs, and experiences paralysis from the waist down. Neville will never walk on his own two feet again.

The brightly-robed healers whisper fretfully amongst themselves when Neville arrives in the emergency room with his Great Uncle Algie and his Great Aunt Enid, but his diagnosis does not change. The fact of the matter is that while most healers are expert spell-casters when it comes to mending bone and replacing stolen blood, the spinal cord is something else entirely. Neville cries when he finds out. Not only is he a Squib, but a bed-ridden one, too.

Of course, Uncle Algie feels terribly sorry about the whole thing. He never meant to hurt the boy. He just wanted to watch him fly. Neville says nothing when he hears. The whole family seems to avoid Neville in the aftermath of the incident. Augusta in particular seems perturbed by the whole series of events.

Eventually, someone gets their hands on a Muggle wheelchair and a few expository books, and Neville learns how to use a wheelchair. He's rolling forward. Even if it's not what everyone thought he would be doing, Neville has to admit, if only in the quiet corridors of his mind, that having a wheelchair is plenty cool. After that, he fills his days with endless adventures, traveling from one end of the Longbottom mansion to the other. He entertains himself by talking to the maids and butlers who work in the family estate, befriending the little guy and taking up a series of personal studies in the library. Neville will never attend Hogwarts, but home is a close second.

One of the maids takes pity on the young boy, trapped in a wheelchair, and takes him outside to see the back gardens. Little does she know, but she changes Neville's life forever. In another world, Neville's charm-work had always been inferior to his love of plants. Here, he really shines.

* * *

**A/N: **If there's enough interest, I'll write a longer ending.


	6. Broken Blue Plates

Prompt: Write about being blamed for something awful.

Prompt Source: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Assignment #5, History of Magic: Herpo the Foul, #1.

* * *

Harry starts working in the kitchen when he is three. He stands on a wooden stepladder and washes the dishes by hand. He uses an oversized broom to sweep the floor and throws away the trash using a dustpan. When Harry is four, he stands on tiptoe and stares over the gray metal edge of the stovetop at a frying pan full of bacon. Petunia slaps him on the upside of the head if the bacon isn't cooked to perfection. By the time Harry Potter is five years old, old enough to start kindergarten, he is in charge of scrambled eggs, bacon, and buttered toast every morning. When most kids were going to preschool - if they could afford it - Harry was learning how to cook.

A month before his birthday and two months before the first day of school, Harry drops one of Petunia's plates. There are two blue stripes circling the rim and they're expensive. Petunia, predictably, throws a fit when she finds out. She screams like a banshee at Harry for failing to do something so utterly benign. In her eyes, he can do no right. Whereas Dudley can do no wrong. Harry stares quietly at the floor. A nasty little bug wriggles in his stomach. _Not good enough,_ Harry thinks, over and over. At five years old, this is all he's known. This is all he thinks he will ever be. Past, present, and future merge into one seamless, unending moment.

When Petunia runs out of steam, Harry gets sent to his bedroom. Through the wall, Harry can hear Petunia grumbling under her breath and sweeping up the broken pottery. Her workload seems twice as heavy. Harry feels responsible. He doesn't know what to feel, other than shame. The only person he can control is himself. He let Petunia down.

* * *

Word count: 310


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